Is there no restriction whatsoever on personal information held by one party as a legitimate mode of requirement for the services of that company then being resold (no doubt with thousands of others) to a third party.

What exactly is covered by the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998?

__________________"A cynic, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin"..H.L.Mencken.Sent from my stone monolith using cuneiform and runic symbols.

Without going into too much detail Paul, the intention behind the DPA 1998 was to provide protection from people passing on (usaully for a fee!) personal information to third parties.

It regulates that personal information may be held if it is relevant to the business being carried out by the parties concerned, but there are limits on how that info can be used and who has access to it.

As an example, I handle a lot of documentation containing personal information fo all types. I can use the information for any pruposes connected with my role as long as it is relevant to the reason why the individual supplied it to me, and I can pass the information on to other people who require it to process whatever it is that the individual has supplied it for.

What I can't do is to use that material for my own personal gain, or to allow it to be used by others who are not entitled to have access to the data because they do not to have it or they are not legitimately part of the process for which the information is to be used.

In order to guarantee this, we have technological features that prevent unauthorised access, we have to log out of our PC's if they are unattended, and any cupboards or cabinets containing paper based information must be kept secure.

I was thoroughly trained in many aspects of the DPA 1998 in a previous role many years ago, so some of my recollections may be a bit fuzzy now, but I hope the principles of it are still correct!

Is there no restriction whatsoever on personal information held by one party as a legitimate mode of requirement for the services of that company then being resold (no doubt with thousands of others) to a third party.

What exactly is covered by the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998?

The Act itself mentions in article 10:

Quote:

Subject to subsection (2), an individual is entitled at any time by notice in writing to a data controller to require the data controller at the end of such period as is reasonable in the circumstances to cease, or not to begin, processing, or processing for a specified purpose or in a specified manner, any personal data in respect of which he is the data subject, on the ground that, for specified reasons—

(a)the processing of those data or their processing for that purpose or in that manner is causing or is likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress to him or to another, and
(b)that damage or distress is or would be unwarranted.

The data controller is then obliged to

Quote:

The data controller must within twenty-one days of receiving a notice under subsection (1) (“the data subject notice”) give the individual who gave it a written notice—
(a)stating that he has complied or intends to comply with the data subject notice, or
(b)stating his reasons for regarding the data subject notice as to any extent unjustified and the extent (if any) to which he has complied or intends to comply with it.

If that doesn't happen it goes to court.

There are also rules on transferring data outside the EEA without safeguards which is probably overlooked or barely met.--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Anyone who has my landline number also gets told 'the code' - ring off after x rings, then ring back. That way I know whether it's a call worth answering or not. Only 3 people have that number anyway - my Parents, my ex-girlfriend and my closest mate at work. I blatantly stole that system from my now unfortunately deceased Uncle, but boy does it save me an increase in blood pressure!

My other tactic of choice was to answer a PPI call on my personal mobile (if I had nowt better to do), and then waste the callers time for as long as I could manage. I'd find excuses to stick them on hold for 10 minutes at a time. Usual ruses for achieving this were telling him I was cooking my dinner, hang on a moment... Returning to the phone, listening to some gibber, then going outside and ringing my own doorbell, then returning to the phone, grabbing my work phone to ring my own land line, and sticking them back on hold again - you get the idea!

Anyone who has my landline number also gets told 'the code' - ring off after x rings, then ring back. That way I know whether it's a call worth answering or not. Only 3 people have that number anyway - my Parents, my ex-girlfriend and my closest mate at work. I blatantly stole that system from my now unfortunately deceased Uncle, but boy does it save me an increase in blood pressure!

My other tactic of choice was to answer a PPI call on my personal mobile (if I had nowt better to do), and then waste the callers time for as long as I could manage. I'd find excuses to stick them on hold for 10 minutes at a time. Usual ruses for achieving this were telling him I was cooking my dinner, hang on a moment... Returning to the phone, listening to some gibber, then going outside and ringing my own doorbell, then returning to the phone, grabbing my work phone to ring my own land line, and sticking them back on hold again - you get the idea!

I use a similar system, partly connected to the way that BT's message service works (ring x+y times, then it goes to the message service, so I ring x times, cut off, then ring x times again. If nobody answers, it means nobody is home, so I hang up before having to pay anything. Annoyingly, it goes direct to the service if the line is engaged, which can be expensive.

As for sales calls, I use a number of systems, some of which I got from my great uncle - although it helped that he could speak Urdu, so calls from Pakistan or parts of India sometimes went on for a very long time. If it's a 'survey', I give various silly or useless answers (such as 'I don't know' or 'mind your own business' quite often). For instance, energy providers have varied from 'the nuclear reactor in the cellar' to 'Hammy the Hamster upstairs'. Our phone doesn't have a hold feature, but it is right next to a CD player, which serves just as well.--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Quote:

Originally Posted by SS4

Automated scammers are the most annoying. I had one about a week ago about PPI and I could press 5 to proceed or 9 to tell me I'd done it and they'd "take me off their list". Yeah, I wasn't falling for that one! You can't even speak to a real person to express your distaste.

Related:
[youtube]-yYjESHILGo[youtube]

Does that dial 9 thing work? Normally, I just hang up on those after the first few seconds.

__________________
Always thinking as I type, sometimes not very well

Last edited by LE Greys; 11th April 2013 at 22:49.
Reason: Double post prevention system

If I''m going through one of those periods where the same (usually automated) irritant keeps calling then I just divert the number to Ofcom for a couple of days - that normally sorts them out. If Ofcomm don't like it then they can go and do something about it now that I have given them an incentive to do so.

Mind you it kind of only works if you have another number you obtained on-line that you give out to everyone except friends/ family and you telephony/ broadband provider of course.

I got so fed up with irrelevant voicemail messages on my mobile that I rang the service provider and got them to disable the service. The annoyances ranged from missed sales calls where the phone defaulted to voicemail after 3 rings, to mates ringing up and saying, "Don't worry, I'll ring you at home !". Half the time, by the time I'd wasted 12p or whatever it is, I'd seen or spoken to them anyway. It's amazing how much lower the phone bills are when you don't have to waste money listening to useless messages.